tonight on our team trying to contain the damage the president of afghanistan says his troops can no longer take part in joint airstrikes with international forces so what does this mean for nato forces in the region and u.s. relationships with afghanistan r.t. questions more next. and president obama takes a mini golf vacation over the weekend the cells of florida leaving the white house press corps high and dry but why does the media care so much about who the president is playing golf with aren't there more pressing issues they should care about. point of the weekend before. taking to the streets over the weekend thousands turn out of washington to protest the keystone pipeline they hope president obama blocks the plan but will he disappoint his liberal environmentalist

base we'll ask that question coming up. it's monday february eighteenth a pm in washington d.c. i'm meghan lopez and you're watching r.t. . harsh words coming from president karzai afghan president karzai hard karzai enough is enough in the wake of an airstrike that left ten civilians dead last week president karzai has issued a decree banning afghan security forces from the questing international air strikes during operations in residential areas for quite some time now the nato and afghan security forces have teamed up to conduct counterterrorism operations there relied heavily on air strikes but that appears to be over in his decree of president karzai said quote. our in the in their own country calls foreigners to assist them and bombard four or five al qaeda or taliban is very runnable to hear this you are

representing afghan pride how do you call for an airstrike from foreigners on your people president karzai went on to say that these airstrikes show a lack of respect for his country's sovereignty by the u.s. and nato forces so how will this change the face of the war in afghanistan and is it an end to collateral damage in the country well earlier i spoke with jake deliberate oh he's a former marine and political researcher at the university of birmingham now there are afghans will i heavily on air support to fight insurgents and given the topography of the area i asked jake if he thinks that this will change the face of war. well you know it's interesting this decree that came out from president karzai we know we've seen him over the last decade or so say a number of very obscure or things he's made several policy decisions that have been in somewhat in some ways nonsensical the banning of the airstrikes is

it's interesting because it's one of the main ways that the coalition is able to target the insurgency pacifically anti governmental insurgents in mountainous region areas by the fact i'm saying that they can't use them in an urban areas is that is fairly insignificant but it is significant in the sense that they can't use airstrikes anymore in urban areas that are mountainous terrain which means more risk to the coalition and it's also more risk to afghan soldiers but simultaneously i think it's also important for the most part in the mountainous mountainous terrain it's not the afghans that are being forced into you know rural and mountainous terrain that for the most part coalition partners are suffering those casualties so overall this is it's another one of the messy decisions that karzai has made in the midst of this very very dysfunctional

conflict but on the other hand president karzai i came to the scene just last month asking for everything from tanks to military hardware to aircraft capable of carrying out these airstrikes like f. sixteen also it was afghan forces that called for this most recent strike that actually killed those ten civilians so how does that complicate the narrative. forgive us for those little technical glitches we had there we're going to move on now president obama is spending a lot of time in the rough these days but i'm not talking about his golf match against tiger woods the fact is that we don't know how he's playing because he has two reporters for a mole again but not by a but he just simply did not allow them to tag along on his golf trip with tiger

woods and the media is taking shots at the president's transparency policy talk back should we have the right to see the president play golf with tiger woods yes that tiger woods champion golfer and former serial adulterer he has the right to have his own down time but the american people deserve to see what the present united states is doing it's just the optics of it and i mean this is supposed to be the most transparent administration in the history of the world the best family man and the worst family man they don't want them in the same boat but c.n.n. wasn't the only one chipping away at president obama's reputation in b.c. and fox news are among some of the other stations to air out their frustrations with the commander in chief yes president obama promised transparency in his administration but when it comes to policies and actions that is is he really required to share every detail of his personal doings with the media as well and

most importantly why is the media so stuck on the fact that they can't have pictures of him goal thing when there are other more legitimate threats to transparency that deserve the media's attention frankly the ever outspoken christopher chambers joined me earlier for a critique at the media's criticism of the president he's a journalism professor at georgetown university and began by explaining why there is such a this has been such a big story take a look. he's stepped into this he has created a situation where it's basically he's the catalyst for that perfect storm because he has asserted again and again that he has the most transparent presidency in recent memory which is not we all know that's not true however again the policy. you know this is not the same as a george w. bush going to baghdad or any president going to another country as a head of state this is golf with tiger woods now again perfect storm sort of

situation is tiger woods you heard the fox commentator so you have serial adulterer that gives you a hint or metaphor of what's going on here they have a twenty four hour cycle to fill some of the stations have the media outlets have a point of view raw meat they have to fit the you know to throw to their demographics who might take the president say m s n b c has their own you know and so but you don't have any of that analysis with a golf trip with tiger woods but they need to feel that there has to be that constant churning you know and yesterday seaquest ration going on a lot and foreign affairs problems but you know who is discussing that you know jack lew is not there denis mcdonough is not there tom donilon is not out on the green with them so you know obviously this is sour grapes and a little stupid all right well let me bring up a quote that put it very harsh context the type of rhetoric that there that you're seeing coming out of the media right now so this is by one of the fox news

contributors afraid to go ahead and bring up that quote it says it's says speaking on behalf of the white house correspondents association i can say a broad cross-section of our members from print radio online and t.v. have today expressed extreme frustration to me about having absolutely no access to the president of the united states this entire week and there's a very simple but important principle we will continue to fight for today and in the days ahead chance. and say so obviously they're fighting for some sort of transparency it just comes to pictures of a man whom has been seen in a negative light in the media in recent days what is that let me ask you what is the possible reason that make it that the president has signed not allowing pictures or he doesn't have to have one that's the thing that's what people need to stand there's no policy there's no state craft going on there at least theoretically if there was some probable cause or at least a reasonable suspicion on the part of the press doing their job not curing the

twenty four hour cycle not feeding raw meat to pundits and then their demographics but actually doing investigative work finding their sources denis mcdonough his office in tom donilon soffa successor like what is what is there something else going on is going to play a couple rounds with tiger and then go in and talk to karzai over the phone you know but there hasn't been any of that it's literally a new sour grapes and that word transparency is almost like a touch word like benghazi you know it's a touch word that they're using to cut it to basically hide behind to say ok well this is a legitimate concern we have but i mean there isn't any state craft or policy making all i can use that word and his state of the union station when he was talking about targeted killings i mean is it is the media really dropping the ball here as you know it in their opinion are they having balik specially i want to ask you are they did they show this type of coverage when it came to say the osama bin

ladin pictures no no i mean look this they are not doing their job they have dropped the ball a long long time ago they are still looking for it this is basically them trying to to create a story that is not there that is not there and if we had had a situation where he was overseas where there was a meeting at camp david where there were other people present on the green and there was some probable cause or hunch that there was something else going on there i understand that but that is not to me. doing its job it is more churning and so the reports of the punditry or about the reports in the punditry and not real news not even the situation with the protests with the keystone pipeline or other situations with that with the nominations there's no you know there's no investigation into the liberations there it's just about him playing golf and they do silly it is a while and finally just a point to bring up is that he has held the last few us to press conferences and also question and answer sessions with reporters so yes it is silly. to it go he's

created like i said the beginning he's kind of created that catalyst and now they're just running with the journalism professor chris chambers thank you so much further for joining us on this topic while president obama was soaking up the sun and working on his golf strokes with tiger woods some thirty five thousand protesters braved the cold in washington d.c. this past sunday why well to speak out against the keystone x.l. pipeline. and what many call the largest climate change protest in u.s. history activists marched around the white house and demanded the president move forward with his clean energy proposals advocates say the pipeline would cause irreparable damage to the environment due to the canadian tar sand sand extraction process now it was only a month ago that president obama promised to be a leader in clean energy and he reiterated that same promise in front of congress

just six days ago at the state of the union address so will president obama hold true to his word earlier i was joined by independent journalists well potter i asked him why the pipeline is so controversial in the first place. the controversy with q so the pipeline really reflects a coming together of a lot of issues that have been really central to the environmental movement for years i mean we have issues of corporations claiming you know an eminent domain to go thousands of miles with this pipeline from canada to texas along the way destroying communities destroying the environment threatening the water supplies and at the same time we're ignoring the cost to future generations so really it's become a question of is president obama going to walk the walk with his promises on climate change and sustainable and energy or is it going to defer to corporate interests let me ask you this is it possible for him to both support the keystone pipeline but also support clean energy is that are those two just fundamentally against each other the montreux of the anti pipeline movement accused own protest has really

been that all pipelines leak and all the oil peaks i mean there's no way to have a sustainable pipeline and there's no way to have a sustainable energy policy that still pond policies like this and addition to other hot button issues like fracking and mountaintop removal i really reflects the depth and breadth of environmental destruction that's going on right now and the name of energy and so it's up to obama to change course you know a lot of proponents for this for this keystone x.l. pipeline have brought up different things that you know are benefits for the u.s. in the short term it would bring down oil prices right now we are seeing oil prices gas prices anyway rise a thirteen percent in one month to an average of three dollars and seventy three cents per gallon across the nation they also say it will bring jobs and infrastructure into the u.s. at a much needed time it'll also reduce the reliability of the u.s. on in middle eastern oil expect considering how how turbulent that environment is

so is there any reason for environmentalist maybe back off a little bit or is that just so bad in the long run that is there's no positive benefit i think it's tempting to get red. in the turbulence of markets and oil and gas prices but i think we also have to remember the turbulence of what's going on right now with the climate i mean we've seen the hottest years on record we've seen superstorm sandy droughts across the country everywhere we look there's this mounting evidence of climate change so i mean how do we balance those two and i think a lot of environmentalists and i think generally the american public would say you really can't balance them i mean at the end of the day there are no jobs on a dead planet now some critics say that these tar sands are going to flow through canada regardless of the pipeline or not it is going to happen it's just a matter of whether it's going to be cheaper in the long run or a lot more expensive one which we don't have that pipeline what it whatever. people that are against this pipeline say about that i mean is it inevitable well you know

it's easy to fall into that trap but i think it's important to remember that even though there will be plenty of challenges ahead regardless of what happens with the piece to a pipeline that doesn't mean we stop fighting i mean what we're seeing right now just in the last couple of years is really a resurgence of a new and more mature environmental movement that's bringing together civil rights leaders using civil disobedience at the white house ranchers in texas clergy in oklahoma that's really a vibrant diverse movement and i think they're ready to tackle any new issue that comes down you know too often we hear protesters come out to washington d.c. come out to the white house to protest against something we're not protesting for something else we have a lot of criticism but very few solutions are there any proposed solutions with the people that came out this weekend that's what's really inspiring to me about what we're seeing right now with these movements i mean as someone who's covered these issues for well over a decade now that the movement is not just about protesting in d.c. we're seeing on the ground organizing around the country bringing together for

instance first nations groups in canada such as i don't know more than just indigenous rights groups like i said with ranchers in texas with really diverse interests even some tea party groups coming out and i think that's what they're building in. howard boyce what are their solutions if not if not oil if not gas if not fossil fuels what's their solution are they part of it is restructuring the debate so it's about who has the voice who is allowed to ask those questions right now that's not even on the table and i think it's a radical shift to even say we need to be able to have this discussion as people as a community rather than restricting it to boardrooms of corporations ok and just really quickly fifteen seconds or less would it i'm darn mentalists have supported obama as much as they did in the two thousand and twelve campaign if they had known that this could possibly go through i think it's hard to say i mean what's without a doubt right now is that obama has said this is going to be his legacy he's looking forward to the future and it's up to him if he's really going to walk that walk all right well potter independent journalist thank you so much for joining me

. still ahead on our team from found black and blue to just plain red it's no secret that the city of baltimore took a beating financially over the past few years but a new analysis says the city could be facing bankruptcy does a report showing it impeding and impending financial do or is the city have warned its future than the report discusses we'll see after a break. actually deadly blizzard taking aim for the northeast it's expected to hit stunning in a few hours from new york to maine we have team coverage of the storm. we're watching is the very heavy snow moving into boston properly today. you can see it start to become much more time to read. and there's still a lot of snow out here in the place for snow but. d.c. it is been a pretty incredible day there and record snowfall throughout much of it might still

be there let's see if you're exceptional. see him when you're going to let me ask you a point. here on this network as we're having the debate we have our knives out. right on the banks thing never get here in the fifth grade where b. and i don't even talk about your name and.

here is mitt romney trying to figure out the name of that thing that we americans call. a dollar. i'm sorry i'm just a guy who cares enough about what you sir are you know what kind of my son. wants he wishes to feature isn't the only liberal democrats to. secure the only support of the disco super to distract us from what you and i should care about because they're profit driven industry that sells a sensationalistic garbage he calls it breaking news i'm happy martin and we're going to break this that it's. safe.

just put a picture of me when i was like nine years old and just you know the truth. i'm a contestant i am a total get a friend that i love rap and hip hop music and pretty. much it was kind of a yesterday. i'm very proud of the world with its place.

baltimore maryland is known as the charm city however a less than charming report has come out saying that the city could be facing bankruptcy in the next ten years if it doesn't make some very difficult changes and decisions since then some client and former city employees have questioned the motivations of the report artie's just a nod or hill has a story. baltimore is looking at a dire economic forecast according to a ten year forecast commissioned by the baltimore city government major financial reforms will be needed to steer clear of a projected bankruptcy the report projects that the city will accumulate seven hundred forty five million dollars in budget deficits over the next decade this is due to a widening gap between projected revenues and expenditures other expenses for infrastructure and obligations for retiring health benefits can push the city's budget shortfall to as much as two billion dollars over the next ten years that's almost as much as

the city's annual operating budget of two point two billion dollars per year. at her recent state of the city address the mayor of baltimore spoke about budget concerns we cannot build a foundation of a growing city on the mud of a fiscal swamp the status quo is unacceptable and the price of an action is clear we must change to grow by taking steps proactively baltimore hopes to avoid the fate of jefferson county alabama and stockton california two municipalities that recently filed for bankruptcy but each city has unique challenges baltimore city councilwoman rickey specter sees population decline as a key issue since we have lost population and the piggyback tax that you paid to the state goes to the jurisdiction where you sleep at night not where you earn it so baltimore city economic generator of the state where billions of dollars

are earned in the city but don't sleep in the city the mayor recently outlined plans to tackle the fiscal challenges the report highlighted the deficit is largely driven by growing health care and pension costs we must rebalance the way we compensate our hardworking employees but this report is just a projection of the future it doesn't reflect the current state of the city's budget according to a lead author on the the report. city is in the black city is not in a current crisis at the moment the city's budget is balanced for the current year over the time the city has built reasonably healthy reserves there are some who question whether this newly released projection is the reason for the proposed budget cuts or if this report was commissioned in order to justify cuts that were already in the works detective robert cherry head of the baltimore city police union dismissed the report as

a political effort he told the baltimore sun which going on here is all a smokescreen they don't know what the tax base is going to look like their consultants asked to come and deliver bad news so that the city can do political posturing furthermore cristela port a former baltimore city recreation and parks director sees the forecast as window dressing to direct attention away from a serious lack of financial oversight so firms that get this work no tax and basis said no a lot of. you know i had nothing to go on so it's different there if you know you're saying to have a firm take four hundred fifty thousand dollars makes a projection over ten years about the fiscal reforms it is and never mentioned in the report the missing is the beginning to audit the agency and that's why in effect i describe it's over for this report was designed to address the financial issues that plague the city but the question now is whether this forecast will lead to positive changes or if it's just politics as usual in baltimore just seen

underhill r.t. . well the boy scout motto is to always be prepared but nothing could have prepared the one hundred plus one hundred two year old organization for the media blitz it's faced in recent weeks the group is facing major scrutiny for outright banning homosexual boy skeleton scout leaders from joining the organization but it seems that it has that it has a lot more discriminating discriminatory policies than that last week the human rights campaign released a job application that outlines the boy scouts of america has employment policies you're looking at it right here it turns out that the group will not employ atheists agnostics known or about homosexuals or anyone really that goes against the group's value system now the letter was printed back in two thousand and three and the boy scouts of america has not responded to its release however it is important to note right there at the bottom it says that while agnostics and

homosexuals are not permitted convicted felons are not necessarily ruled out as potential employees will leave it up to the parents to decide if the morals and values of the organization is teaching its children by example is really ones that they want their young ones to live by the organization asserts that the right to certain forms of disc of discrimination it was granted to them by a two thousand supreme court decision given the fact that it is a faith based organization and the group has taken a major hit by its financial supporters in the process with intel foundation u.p.s. and united way all having stopped or postponed donations to a group for its anti-gay policies but for all the rhetoric you have to give it to the boy scouts of america for one thing anyway they sure know how to spark a fire even without using matches and tinder. and now an update to julian assange

in his bid to run for senate the wiki leaks founder of who currently resides in the ecuadorian embassy in london spoke to the ecuadorian website the conversation and gave a few details as to why he's decided to run for office in his native australia according to his son jay if he were to win on september twenty fourth he believes the us would have to call off the dogs and drop its investigation against him he also believes the u.k. would be forced to follow suit saying quote the political costs of the current standoff will be higher still now running under the party the wiki leaks party which is a party that he founded himself the platform would be specifically to focus on promoting greater transparency in the australian government songes last australia in june of two thousand and ten and sticking with the topic of ecuador in a sweeping sunday vote ecuadorian president rafael correa won every election handily with fifty six percent of the vote in the closest of his seven opponents

came in with just twenty three percent which comes out to about a thirty three point margin of victory for the ecuadorian president our sister channel r.t. spanish caught up with korea after his decisive victory take a look. yes. it's up to europe now who has used sovereignty to do what it had to do one country doesn't have to ask anybody for permission or offer explanations but with an immense arrogant and a policy of new colonialism they want us to provide some explanations over the granting of asylum why should we do that and on top of that they want us to counsel that decision we will never do that. well love them or hate them it looks like ecuador and the rest of the world can expect this type of canned or from korea at least until twenty seventeen maybe longer will say but that's going to do it for now for more of the stories we covered go to youtube dot com slash r t america or

check out our website that's our team dot com slash usa our web seem as always working hard to bring you the latest and greatest stories coming out of the the world that we just don't always have time to get to now today our web story the one that you see right there with john mccain it's a story about the benghazi attack as if we haven't heard enough about the split in congress when it comes to the issue it turns out that john mccain says there was a massive cover up after the attack happened but the senator wouldn't go into much detail about how the coverup took place or what the obama administration is exactly trying to hide read all about it on our team dot com and don't forget to follow me on twitter at meghan underscore lopez my question to my twitter followers tonight is should the u.s. permanently hope the keystone x.l. pipeline and if so what should we do to quench america's thirst for energy tweet me at mega.